Root, Tree and the Branches of Possibility
by Mu-Sensei
Summary: Rin was desperate enough to ask for help, and crazy enough to follow Zelrech. And now that she witnessed the madness of the worlds out there, how did she wish she hadn't!
1. Chapter 1

Tohsaka Rin hesitated.

She wasn't one to do it often, or as Shirou and Saber noted on occasion, she wasn't one to let her hesitation _show_ very often. Still, this man was supposed to be the master that taught her very ancestors, and the most feared man in the association.

"Excuse me, Zelrech-san." She pulled her best behavior and knocked on the door.

"Come in Child." Came the response, in a deep rumbling voice. She squashed her flight response, and buried her fear deep down. So what if he was known to put his disciples through hell, and make them insane? Her ancestor did learn from the man, and there wasn't a single line in her notes that said the man was anything but sane.

Just because common rabble tried to imitate Tohsaka blood and failed, it meant _nothing_ to her! She was a prodigy! And she wasn't backing down just because her knees were shaking!

She pushed the door open, noting that he was seated in a large couch with a book in hands a pair of reading glasses in his nose. On another couch a redhead was fingering some sort of flattened tv screen and discussing something unintelligible with a man clad in high collared white cape and suit. In Japanese no less!

"Zelrech-sama, I respectfully ask you to help me in my quest." She bowed deeply, and noted little movement, if the man's glasses reflection were anything to go by.

"You want my help for the kid right?" He chuckled deeply. "The one that ran away because the sealing." He elaborated at her silence.

Was that it? She had thought him of all the people wouldn't side with the lords, especially the Einzberns, due to their long standing grudge over the Grail War.

"Geez girl, you think too much!" He outright laughed. _Laughed!_ "I can almost hear the engines and cogs turning and see the smoke escaping through your ears!" Rin swallowed her anger the best she could, even as the other two joined him in chuckling. "Of course I'll help." She saw a fond smile cross his face, and thought that perhaps Shirou had talked, no, even _cooked _for the master of the second in occasion, no other way to explain why he would care about him.

"Let us start them." With a wave of his hand, a portal appeared in front of them, and he motioned her to go forward. Years of training suppressed a life of instinct that screamed for her that it was dangerous, that she would die, and she walked in, eyes closed expecting everything:

A pit of lava, being dropped in the middle of the sky, or perhaps inside a dragon's stomach.

Instead, she stepped in a perfect ordinary, well no, it was very beautifully carved wood corridor, lightly curved with tall and thin windows in the outer side and shelves with large tomes on the inside.

* * *

"The alarm of the basement has gone off again..." A beautiful voice called from a high-backed chair, where an equally beautiful, no, even more gorgeous owner was reclined, lazily messing in a computer-like device.

A younger girl glared ineffectively from the terminal she was operating, finishing a few keystrokes before she spoke: "I'm turning the surveillance on, but the archives are _your_ responsibility." The cuter of the two females stated, and then snorted un-lady-likely as soon as the screen opened. "Forget it, is just the old goat again... No! Wait, he brought company, some girl in red." The younger glared at the screen in annoyance, while the other was all curiosity.

* * *

Zelrech had barely stepped out of the portal before he opened his arms and spoke in a reverberating voice: "This, Rin, is The Root, the immense library of knowledge of all the events of the world."

"The Root!?" Rin looked around in surprise. She had expected something less… common. Maybe if the corridor was crystalline, with floating spheres of mana showing images of the multiverse… and souls roaming around. "Seriously?" She spoke in disbelief. "I… expected… more." A pause, "Anyways, where are the newer files? This stuff is probably from the time of Gilgamesh!" She complained, swallowing the disappointment at the dream of any magi turning to be something so mundane.

The man chuckled again, and motioned to the point where the corridor was curving upwards. "You see little girl, after the illumination period, they started gradually changing the code, and they put the archives in some sort of slabs of plastic and metal..." Zelrech explained, annoyed. "While the older registers are nothing but old Norse runes, the newer ones, shaped like lines and harsh angles are much more difficult to make sense."

"Huh" She couldn't even imagine what those would look like, and the man shrugged again, "And they keep then in these black fridges, probably to prevent degradation." and sure enough, they were now in front of a black box twice the side of a person with blinking lights, and emitting a soft humming noise. The old man ignored this and opened the door pulling a green slab and speaking again: "See what I mean, these runes and lines have nothing to do with the ones in the bo-"

Rin looked at the thing in disbelief, then at the man, then back at the green slab… and she couldn't keep her laughter in check anymore. "This... Is a circuit... old...man." She said between laughs, then took a few calming breaths. "I'm not well versed on technology myself, but if my classes of school were right, we will have to buy a few tools to see what's in there."

* * *

...All the while, Upstairs...

"He pulled the theta-nine-alpha-seven-zero plate, Urd, call the security!" Skuld, the goddess of the future demanded angrily.

Urd, the Norn of the past shot back instantly, voice laced in sarcasm: "Soo, little sister, all is well and fine when he mess with the books, but the moment he put his hand on the mainframes, is the end of the world!? Relax, kid, those are just backup storage anyway, and he will do as always, stare at them for a few minutes then put them back, if he does anything stupid, we call the Valkyries. Simple." Is not like could simply expel the old coot, he had permission after all. "See, they're gone...The old man can't use computers to save his life, and is not like the mainframes were accessible by normal means anyway." As always, the chocolate skinned beauty handwaved her responsibilities completely.

* * *

...A few minutes later...

"You sure that all this equipment is really needed?" Zel inquired suspiciously, easily carrying the TV-like screen by its base. "One of my disciples can do it with a portable terminal or something like that…"

"Well, if my old informatics class serves me right, this is a CPU, so we need a screen, keyboard and mouse to be able to use." Rin assumed her lecture pose for a second, but broke it and searched the floor for something, "And the first step..."

* * *

...Upstairs...

"They're back." Skuld stated from the screen, while her older sister was pouring herself a drink. "And they brought stuff."

"So what?" The half demoness rolled her eyes theatrically. "Is not the first time Zel uses the basement as a safe box. And certainly not the last."

"Urd, what is the red girl doing, she is reaching for-" the entire building became dark, and alert messages and shrill beeps came from the few machines that stayed on.

* * *

"Turn the computer off!" Rin stated proudly, before the corridor lamps turned red, and her world dark.

* * *

"The power cord..." Skuld stated dryly, crossing her arms indignant. "I'm not being responsible for this, I warned you! But noo! You choose to do nothing. Now some Luddite pulled the plug of Yggdrasil and a few universes!"

Urd nearly lost her trademark dark skin for a moment, so pale she turned. "Erm, please tell me you did your backups?"

The most tech-savvy of the Norns rolled her eyes and sighed, pulling the keyboard and punching a few commands. "Always…" A chime sounded from her machine, where a terminal window prompted ominously:

…_reboot complete._ _Restore Multiverse from the last saved state? (Yes/No/Info)__

She punched the Y button and looked as the very time turned back a few minutes, back to when the red clad omnicide was laughing on the basement floor. "I'm not well versed on technology myself, but if my classes of school were right, we will have to buy a few tools to see what's in there." Urd quickly picked the keyboard and typed an administrative command implanting a suggestion on the man, to prevent the incident repeat.

He shot a dirty look at the surveillance, and frowned, but nonetheless answered his companion: "No need." With a wave of his cane, the master of the second opened another portal and a dropped a second girl on the floor right before a large backpack.

* * *

Rin stared at Rin for a moment, before the newcomer got her eyes on Zelrech. "Oh root no!" She paled. "I'm not the one you want! I'm unamusing, unassuming boring talentless girl! Leave me alone!" She cowered in the corner holding her backpack as a makeshift shield.

"Talentless?" Her mirror image parroted, confusion quickly giving way to anger. "How can _I_ be talentless?! Pull yourself together!" She grabbed her other self and drew her palm back, but the tip of the cane forced her hand to lower.

"While eight times of ten you end as the Tohsaka Heir, sometimes you _don't_." He frowned. "Sometimes you even escape being given to the Matou family." One of the Rin's paled, while the other looked sighed miserably.

"I got to be the heir somewhere?" The other asked in wonder.

"Omniverse girl! Use your brains." He rapped her on the head lightly for emphasis. "But enough of that, you two can change experiences later. I need your unique talents right now." At her confused look he pointed at the contraption by her side.

"A storage server? …Oh, ok, you're no good with computers I see, it's a magus thing." She crossed her legs and started pulling device after device of her bag and connecting them with colored cables. Looking at the main node of wires, she pulled a few off, before connecting it to a box of hers.

"Shouldn't you turn it off first?" Her other inquired.

"Eh?" Was the surprised response. "Why would I do that?"

"Nevermind her. Continue please." The Second Magician looked at the proceeding with open interest.

The more tech savvy of both Tohsakas sat up crosslegged, taking a small device and opening it, a diminutive computer much to the surprise of the other, and connected the one of the cables to it. Turning the device on, she put reading glasses before touching a silver circled area that activated a few images and a bar started to slowly fill up on the center of the screen.

"I didn't know they made them that small." Zelrech commented.

"Never saw a netbook. Why I'm _not_ surprised." She proceeded to mumble something that sounded distinctly like 'stone age magi' before a beep interrupted her tirade. "Strange. Who uses Norse runes as default language?" She turned to the older mage present "Zelrech-san? Is there something I should know about the person I'm hacking?"

"Not really." The Apostle shrugged.

The Tohsaka heir looked in horror. "_Hacking_?! You can't _cut_ the root up!"

"What?! I'm not cutting…" She started, only then registering what exactly was she accessing. "The Root…" She looked at the black server in wonder. Then childish, unrestrained glee. "The root is a computer! Oh! The _delicious,_ _sweet _Irony of it!" She typed madly on her device, and another window popped up, one simple message over the waiting time bar:

_Decoding data, please wait…_

"Rin?" The Sorcerer prompted both girls to look at him, sighing in resignment. "You'll be Glasses from now on." He pointed at the hacker. "And you Crest." He pointed at the Rin he brought up first. "Ok Glasses, what do you have for us?"

"A moment please, my custom decryption algorithm is running." She looked satisfied at the screen. "Useless knowledge eh Father! Take that!"

* * *

… Upstairs …

"She blocked my access!?" The youngest Norn raged at her screen. "How did she even manage that!?"

"Apparently she swapped our main router for her own custom one directly. Quite crafty if I can say so." The bronze skinned goddess noted.

"What are you waiting for!? Call the security!"

"Wait it up kid, they aren't killing any universes yet." She pressed her younger sister against her chair. "Goddesses or not, the old man would cause quite a damage before the Valks get him."

"It's just a human!" The childish goddess tried to wiggle her way out of the chair.

"Actually he is an Apostle, and you're forgetting the old wizard singlehandedly kept the _moon_ from falling on earth by himself. Nah, unless he do something really stupid, we will let him be." She looked at the three forms hunched over the tiny device?

* * *

… With said apostle and his 'disciples' …

"What's that?" Crest asked Glasses, and the old man seemed equally confused.

"An index of contents, probably the multiverse." She pushed one of those non-letter buttons on the keyboard, then used the strange square again, and the small arrow danced on the screen, clicking on one space that jumped forward on the bottom of the screen. "Ok, what exactly are we looking for?"

"Emiya-kun's whereabouts." Crest answered.

"Ok, I'll do a database search. It shouldn't take long." Glasses observed, while her fingers moved absentmindedly over the keys. Less than a minute later she was frowning at the screen.

"What?" The bearer of the Tohsaka's crest frowned at the screen. "What does those weirdly named file-thingies mean?"

Glasses were pushed up a cute nose, before an answer was given: "Folders, probably that they only make a different entry if something changes from the base template of an individual, hardlinking the versions with similar enough experiences…"

"I see…" The Wizard Marshall nodded.

"I don't." The _other_ Rin looked with a blank expression.

"Well, even if the universes are infinite, storage space isn't girl." The Sorcerer of the Second explained. "They probably have the basic information registered, and then only write the changes up."

Glasses snorted. "This will take a while. Well, let's start from the beginning…"


	2. The Prince of Conquerors

Deft hands navigated through off-yellow emblems that seemed to look like old-styled archiving folders, until it ended in a screen full of white paper like pictures.

"Soo, how do we know which of them is the one we want?" A particularly fast couple of clicks was her only response, along with a message in the screen:

[_Loading /MoonlitWorld/SE/Alt4HGW/AltAdPar …_]

The center of the screen then turned into an angry yellow and an exclamation point blinked in and out of view in rather fast succession.

"Great. Give me a second to pick a rendering software for this file." The yellow box vanished as fast as it came, and another of those black bordered white ones came, its contents changing furiously fast under the hands of the Glasses-wearing Rin.

"Gotcha." She made a particularly flashy show of clicking the larger button with the curved arrow and crossed her arms, as the screen turned black, and an image faded into view.

* * *

The boy stared at the kid in front of him. Its state was pitiful, burns all over his body, and barely breathing.

Maybe he could do something? He mustered all the prana he could gather into that healing spell he researched before the war, fearing a situation where he would be the one on the ground.

It took a while, by the end of it he was almost as weak as his target, but the kid's breathing evened, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

"Let's get out of here, shall we?"

* * *

"_Wait, wait, WAIT!"_

Black overtook the screen once more, and the Tohsaka Heir looked at her other self. "Do we have to watch all his life? From birth- …well, from rescue to after the Grail War?"

"Dunno. Let me try something..." The other made a face, and a crunching noise made itself known in the newfound silence.

Both girls turned to the older man, who smiled and offered them a bowl. "Peanuts?"

Crest huffed, Glasses sighed. Figures.

"There, I advanced eight years in time."

* * *

"I still wonder which part of _this_ you think it's fun, Shirou!?" Both the teenager and the woman in a suit dived in a crack of the wall to evade the blast of magical fire from the creature pursuing them. The kid laughed again at the question.

"Oh come on, you never fell truly alive if you haven't been close to death! …or so my father says." He gets up and the small and thick staff in his hand morphs in a larger, bladed one.

The charging undead magi evaded low and readied its claws to tear the boy apart, but the metal reformed into a shield that withstood the attack, if only barely.

The woman dashed forward at the opening, and battered the walking corpse with the most damaging sequence of blows she could manage in her bleeding and broken state.

Releasing his weapon, the boy reinforced himself to the limit, and grappled the creature from behind, his hands holding its head in place while the girl distracted it with many more blows to the torso.

"Death to all that's living, eternal rest to all that walks the earth," He intoned. "from dust they came, and to dust they shall return," He grunted in exertion as the creature thrashed, even while being battered by blows with enough force to break concrete. But his magic took effect and the creature started to weaken, and stopped healing the blows.

One full minute it thrashed and tossed, but then it simply stopped unable to support both its own weight and the boy's combined.

Another minute passed and the teen spoke. "It's over." And then he laughed again, this time in relief.

"I can't believe we survived!" The woman let herself slide down the wall in relief. "It killed three enforcers! Three! That if team Beta is still lost in the labyrinth, because if they faced him, it such a one sided slaughter that we didn't even get to hear from 10 meters away!"

"Nah, they're closing in." The boy commanded his weapon back to his hands and inside his sleeve. "Let's get out of here? I'm pretty sure you're not enjoying the décor."

"Yes, let's go. One less apostle to worry about, who knows how many to go."

"All in a day's worth of work to the Queen. Long live the Queen!" He said in mock cheer.

He got his feet swept out of the ground and fell on his butt. "Shut up and help me here. My leg is almost broken, and my head is hurting like hell!" The female enforcer glared at him.

"Sure, sure."

* * *

"Well, I told you not to go. And once more you disobeyed my express orders." His father's glared and puffed angrily, the clouds of nicotine surrounding his head like fumes of hell.

"Sorry father, I only wanted to get more field experience." Shirou lowered his head.

"No, you wanted to play superhero again." The older, but not yet middle aged man sighed, and the boy coughed at the smoke. "What do I do with you, Shirou? Your enthusiasm is certainly good and commendable, and that you kept your principles while being here proves you strength of character, but…"

"I can't understand that calculated risk and suicidal behavior, seeking death, and reckless…" The boy stopped as the glare intensified.

"Yes, I'm aware you've already heard that speech before. I hoped, however, that by the endless repetition it would take effect this time." One more sigh, "To your workshop, I have matters to attend and will be late for dinner." Another glare. "And don't leave the house."

* * *

Waver took the last drag of his cigarrete. If his time with the King of Conquerors taught much of leadership, his time with his son taught much of parenthood. Things that he sometimes felt he was happier _not_ knowing.

If all kids were that much destructive, disregardful of danger and proper conduct, and generally rebellious as this boy… well, it's was miracle that the humans keep reproducing.

Then again, he had his moments on his own youth. Stealing from a Magus of a noble and respected family and entering a war of magi only to prove a point was just the apex of his proud and stupid things he did on the past.

Blasted Grail War did make him mature fast enough though.

If the other one weren't fifty two years away he would be worried for Shirou, but by then, he will have enough experience to survive if he ever get the call.

He'd get the call, of that, Waver Velvet had no doubt.

Perhaps they would even manage to win, but regardless of the result, he would be able to see his King again.

* * *

"I'm pretty sure that guy isn't Kiritsugu-san." Glasses noted.

"No, that's Lord El-Melloi the Second. How in earth Shirou got adopted by him is anyone's guess though." Rin (the crest wielder one,) huffed indignantly. "Still a suicidal idiot though."

"Mine is not that better. Is yours completely oblivious to women?"

The master of the Kaleidoscope cleared his throat. "Comparissons aside, ladies, what about trying the next one, as this is obviously not the one we're looking for…"

"Sure." Glasses nodded.


	3. Berserker

[_Loading …_]

"I still can't make head or tails of that weird code they write this stuff with…" Crest remarked casually, "But I'm willing to hazard a guess that H.G.W. means Holy Grail War."

"It could be H.G. Wells too." Glasses snickered. "I know 'std' usually means 'Standard', and 'Alt' means 'Alternate', but that doesn't help if they're both used together, and we don't actually know what the base template we're talking about is. Without that, noting what is changed is barely of any help."

"True that, but let's just watch?" The master of the second pointed at the screen.

* * *

He had been suffering for a long time now. More than he could remember, as this place didn't really help to keep track of the flow of time. Still, he deserved the suffering. He had killed his, admittedly estranged, childhood friend, and the, much too late realized, love of his life, the girl he had dared call his sister, friends, aquaintaces, and many others, so much blood he carried in his hands for such a small time of his childhood…

And it didn't stop there.

His ideal was impossible, but he made the best of it. While saving the whole world was impossible, he did managed quite some lives, at the cost of others, and in the end even that damned organization decided to leave the legends of the "Beast of Steel" alone, and never set foot in the east again.

Not that his homeland would ever miss them.

All it took were the lives of a couple hundreds, to make the peace in a country. Show some strength, make the evil ones an example, and they would run and hide, for fear if not for the goodness of their hearts.

To make peace, he bathed in blood, endured pain and suffering, all for the sake of a distorted ideal.

_Let thy body rest under my dominion, let my fate rest in thy blade._

And now he would have the chance of changing that, to prevent himself of running this accursed path, to find rest!

_If thou submitteth to the call of the Holy Grail, and if thou wilt obey this mind, this reason, then thou shalt respond._

He knew this chance would come, as he had once faced himself, but he wouldn't do the same he will teach, nurture the ideal so it doesn't became…_._

_I make my oath here. I am that person who is to become the virtue of all Heaven. I am that person who is covered with the evil of all Hades._

A chuckle, dry, pained made itself from him. 'No, that one would be _me_, girl.' He thought grimly. That thought then, called anger, deeply buried, back to surface.

_Thou seven heavens, clad in a trinity of words, come past they restraining rings, and be thou the hands that protect the balance!_

His mind clouded, in seething rage, and his consciousness seemed to waver.

* * *

Rin looked at her destroyed room, and the figure in the middle. Hunched like under a great burden, it sat at in the middle of the room looking at its own hands. It was human, though a slightly distorted image of one. Red and white mane of hair spiked from head and neck, bound by a trip of black cloth, one arm was of darker skin and slightly longer than the other, and his wearing nothing more than ragged black clothing and a blood red mantle of sorts.

She had failed on summoning Saber. Of all the other cards, she has gotten the Berserker.

And what an odd one he (it?) was.

From the initial glimpse of his stats, she could speculate it was a magic user of sorts in life as he showed a respectable knowledge in magecraft, but what kind of self-respecting magus would trade his sanity for po-

Rin knew enough of stories to answer _that_ one. She had summoned a Norse hero, a berserker from the very land that originated the term. She actually felt giddy at the thought.

* * *

Rin had made tea, before sitting down and hopefully trying to make plans for the war, seeing that her Berserker's Eye of the Mind proved that from a _mindless beast _he had nothing but his _class_. The man however was nowhere in sight when she came back, and she was left to steam much like the cooling tea at the table. She had her fill of tea, she had fill of cookies, and no sign of her servant.

"If he isn't back by 10 minutes, berserker or not I'll use a command seal for him to castrate himself…"

"My, my, quite a fearsome master I have." The somewhat hoarse voice of her servant nearly made her jump, but she suppressed her surprise with indignation.

"Where _were_ you?"

The red cloak moved in what she guessed was a shrug. "Checking the area." Then, the cloth retracted by itself as if alive, wrapping around the darker arm and shoulder, and the rest of the body, turning into a simple crimson hoodie. She couldn't keep her eyebrows at how _human_ the servant looked. It was like he was some sort of punk due to his half-red half-silver hair, and now that it was bound in a slightly less wild ponytail she noticed his mismatched eyes, one gold the other a dark silver.

His neck cocked in a jerky motion as he asked a terse 'What?' under his breath, and she noticed another unsettling detail about berserker: he was carrying a long _gun _in his right leg. Not a norseman then.

"First things first: _Who are you_?" Until she knew who she was working with, she couldn't plan effectively.

"Servant Berserker." He gave another dismissive shrug, getting a glare in response.

"I know _that_! Who you were when _alive_, muscle brains!"

He smirked. "You were the one asking the wrong questions." And pointed rudely. "And by the date the grail gave me, you wouldn't know about me _yet_."

"I summoned a hero from the future?! How is that even possible!?"

Another shrug, and she trembled in rage. "Heroes are made by _necessity_, not skill, I'd say." He didn't elaborate before she was about to speak. "To answer your question, I became famous for fighting crime lords, protecting the east from the west for nearly a decade. Then I died after imploding a nuclear reactor that had been sabotaged to take Kanto down with it. By now, I'm still a highschool student, and thus anonym. Does _that_ answer your question?" He said nonchalant.

"_No._" the Tohsaka sighed in frustration. "I wanted to know what you can _do_, nuclear boy. Did you gain _superpowers_ from the radiation or something?"

Berserker actually _laughed_, though it was a hollow sound. "No. But I'm skilled in defensive bounded fields, and an expert in both projection and reinforcement. I'm a good ranged sniper, and a superb close range fighter."

"_Projection_ of all the things?"

"It's useful. Not that it helps, but I'm a good repairman and cook too. Is that satisfactory, master?"

"_Passable_. I'd prefer Saber." She quieted for a minute, before her eyes hardened. "We will go out to scout tonight. Be ready."

"Always am." His face changed to a disturbing smile.

* * *

They walked nearly two hours before she found the first trace of magic, disturbingly enough, on her school. Berserker rushed forward before she could get a word in, and attacked the other servant, probably Lancer, with one large silver blade, barely visible for a second, before it clashed against a crimson spear in a flash of sparks.

Two more blows were exchanged, before a kick forced his opponent back. He advanced forward, sword out of view once more, until Lancer tried to impale him.

In an unexpected move, he let the weapon pierce his cloaked form at the right side, then silver flashed again out of the concealment. She understood then. His movements were invisible until the last instant, his strikes came out of _nowhere_, unable to be easily read thanks to the loose fitting cloth's concealment.

Lancer pulled back still, and a flash of fire and thundering sound made her tense. Lancer's weapon parried the strike, a shot, Rin noticed the smoking black tube retreating into shadows of the mantle, but not the follow-up, Berseker blade stealthily thrown at Lancer's leg at the same time.

The wound wasn't deep enough to stop the blue-clad servant, and he proved so by dashing forward and striking once again, and once again something flashed out of berserker's mantle.

His _hand_.

His _bare_ arm, the longer and darker one, grabbed the weapon's barbed tip with a sound of metal grinding against metal, and polished black flashed out of concealing shadow claiming Lancer's right arm, if only by a scant centimeters.

Rin smiled by a fraction, even as her circuits throbbed and heated. 'Use _it_. Mad Enhancement' She directed her thought at her servant, and his eyes lost focus, but gained a fiery glow.

Lancer cursed something in incomprehensible language, as he was thrown across the courtyard, and was acquainted with the school walls and then corridor, the barbed tip of his deadly weapon stained with what wouldn't amount to a kitchen knife _scratch_ into his opponent.

Some noise attracted Berserker's attention for a second, and he shifted his charge, somehow with two blades in hands (despite his earlier throw) from the spearman to a brown clad youth in the courtyard, the boy futile trying to outrun a Servant with _B_ ranked Agility, making the mistake of showing his back to such a destructive beast.

The silvery blade was thrown like a flying disc at the Sneak attack from Lancer, and two loud Shots were heard. The boy _fell_, and the servant of Lance parried the shot once more, quickly raising his blade against the black one, that was swung at him in a blur.

"Pretty sneaky for a mad beast, if you ask me." The ground was giving way to the two handed grip of the crimson fury, before a glint of silver made him desperately duck, evading the other blade that somehow came back and bounced (bounced!) From Berserker's bare skin.

"What!?" He spoke as if to himself (?!). "You can't be _serious_?" Lancer took distance quickly, "Damn you!" Then , the blue warrior ran into the night.

Rin let a breath she didn't knew she was holding. Her servant was _incredible_! He nearly trounced Lancer, and he barely used any skills!

The servant however, now out of his mad enhancement, was looking somberly at the body of the dead student bleeding into the ground.

One would thought a Berserker would be more… desensitized at collateral damage. The young magus shook those thoughts as she came closer to look at the poor unfortunate soul…

* * *

Emiya Shirou wasn't angry, no, he _was_ angry, anger pervaded his mind all the time since the summoning, though being summoned as Berserker made that a given. At the moment however his dominant emotion was _frustration_.

Unlike most Heroic Spirits were proud of their skills, their weapons and battle prowess, Shirou considered them mere tools, just like a kitchen knife in the hands of a cook (to be fair, it could be quite useful in the hands of an assassin too), and one of his most useful tools was defined by his Eye of the Mind Skill. And even since the summoning it was like his ever present anger clung to him like a fog, obscuring that Eye and shadowing events randomly. He couldn't even think of anything to say to Rin other than the slightly omission of his name, when in hindsight he could have claimed Amnesia, botched summoning (considering he exploded a room on his arrival), heck, he could even say there was something wrong with the Grail and get her on the path of discovering it was tainted!

He had thought fighting all out would prevent Cuchulainn from slaying him (well, the _other_ him), and hadn't objected the power his fury granted him, making the capital mistake of trusting his instincts in a fight. Well, he won. He also discovered he could still fight smartly under Mad Enhancement, but along with that came the knowledge that _everything_ other than Rin was an enemy in that state, heck, even _himself_ (both of them, though _that_ could be a side effect of his distortion). The only reason he hadn't committed suicide along with his self-cide, was that Rin was quite conservative in her use of prana and cancelled it as soon as the Lancer got away.

And now Rin was quite angry at his handwork, and had put quite an effort at showing it, ranting it non-stop after they had left the recently revived Shirou (the _other_ one) to awake on the archery club facilities. She had repeated herself _four times_ already! Doesn't she run out of breath!?

"…What were you thinking!? Huh?!"

Correction. _Five_. He resorted to sarcasm, to keep his anger in check, keep it from turning into fury, but it was getting there…

"I wasn't. Mad Enhancement, remember. Me Berserker, Berserker Smash!" He grunted back, leaking his annoyance on the tone of his response, and she took a swipe against him in retaliation. If she would just shut up! His hands clenched in tension, he could feel the heat pouring in his veins.

"Yeah, like I said, you're _stupid_!" Here it comes part two again… "I had prana enough to match Caster in _that_ gem, and now I had to spend it to save Emiya! Because you _killed_ him!" Another punch. She is probably hurting her hand by this point, besides annoying him. "Idiot, Idiot, IDIOT!"

His vision turned red.

"Look, _Master_," He grabbed her by that red shirt and brought her to eye level. "I'm mad at myself too! I _hate _killing people! And even if I'm crazy enough to not value my life enough, I wouldn't just go around an kill myself like that!" he released her, gesturing wildly to his own chest, "Do you think it's not disturbing to see your own body face down in the dirt bleeding to death?! Do you think if I had a _sliver_ of thought in this burning pain I call a brain I'd try and kill no, _paradox _myself to get Alaya up in our heads?! Do you, _DO YOU_!?"

* * *

Rin was positive she had just wet herself by now. Her servant that was just cold, distant a second ago had just grabbed her shirt hard enough to rip a hole in it, part of the fabric still dangling from his fingers like a deranged ring, her face covered in speckles of spit from his enraged reprieve, and that deranged glow again, that scary, no, _terrorizing_ visage of an angry face, and the smell of sulfur, fire and smoke that emanated from him like a demon just out of hell…

She hadn't even noticed she was clutching her hands hard enough to bleed, or that she had curled herself in self-preservation instinct, she had just, she was just _crying_. How could he scare her like that? How could he just lose his mind like that? What prevented him from simply killing her and leaving her body like trash in the streets? She wouldn't even manage to run, she couldn't even stand, she could barely _breath_!

Her running thoughts were interrupted by the sound of flesh and metal meeting, morbid curiosity giving her head motion to look at her servant smacking his head against a signpost and muttering something like a mantra under his breath…

She sobbed again. She saw death. She had taunted _Berserker_, she threw a fit at him, until he threw it _right back_ at her face, a hundred fold, _somehow _not killing or maiming her in the process. She was so scared she even forgot her C_ommand Seals_.

The only reason she was alive is that he said he hated killing people, or at least he _said_ so…

Never again. "By the power of this command seal, never again you shall raise your hand against me." She grinded between teeth, sobs and hiccups.

* * *

Shirou woke up with a nasty headache, his chest feeling like it was pierced by burning rod and his arm like was pierced by uncountable blades, like he misplaced his fake circuit. Why was he trying to make one in the school _courtyard_ in first place?

He got up, only then noticing the destruction on his school. Many trenches and craters pockmarked the yard, and there was a hole in the wall as wide as he was tall, not only crossing the corridor, but breaking inside one of the classrooms. His vision wavered, and his arm spasmed at the joint. He briefly saw fire and ash, and felt the smell of burnt metal.

Then it vanished as fast as it came.

'I got to go back home.'

And so he did. Walking the eerily empty streets, trying not to think of the flashes of murder and death in his mind, and not of the images of battle he saw earlier. Trying not to think of why he was seeing his own body bleed to death as if from the eyes of another.

"If you not call someone soon, you will die onii-chan ~" A girl sing-songed, hair as white as fresh fallen snow, eyes of a blood red color, innocent but piercing, like they were staring at the depths of your soul.

"Call who?" He _tried_ to ask, but his head burned in pain, it hurt so much, he winced, not hard, a twitch barely enough to blink, and she wasn't there anymore.

_Ilya_.

His arm was on fire again, and blades scrapped against it like razors across his skin, and he wavered. His last though before he fainted was 'Purple?'

* * *

Rin looked at the thoughtful Berserker, forcefully softening her glare, now that she was bathed and her hair washed. She still threw her dirty clothes in front of the sour Hero. "Wash it." She ordered. "It's your punishment for attacking your Master."

Berserker quietly took the bundle and rose, not a word said in response, bringing small smirk to her face. "Emiya-kun?" He looked back before he noticed his mistake. His eyes widened. So did her smirk. "If I catch you sniffing my panties…" She left the threat in the air.

He chuckled, the same hollowness from before in his laugher, but it was an improvement already.

Somehow, the jewel she spent didn't seem such a high price now, with the knowledge that the boy she saved would be remembered forever as a _Hero_. Her cheeks exploded in heat as she remembered the glimpses of toned physique she had when he was transforming his cloak. Stupid Berserker! She will never be able to look at him again the same way! And stupid Shirou too, for being at school so late, and for being the same person too!

And what with Berserker's arm and eye? Did he implant a demon's arm when he lost his own in combat? Or was that like those movies where they put mechanical arms to replace missing ones? She heard metal, right?

* * *

Shirou slept and dreamed, of fire, swords and battle.

A run through bleak white corridors, an incessant blaring of klaxons ringing in his ears, his skin flaying off like he was bathed in acid, his ears and mouth were bleeding, and his body burning like molten steel was injected under his skin. In his hand, he carried a large package, that he knew it was going to be the death of him, but the salvation of many.

Shirou dreamed of his own death, in the only way he pictured himself going: Sacrificing himself for others.

Unknown to himself, Shirou smiled in his sleep.

* * *

The three of them looked at the screen in concern, unable to speak for several moments.

"I always knew something was wrong with him, but still…" Glasses pushed he namesake up uncomfortably. "Sister never told me it was _that_ bad..."

"Self-sacrificing idiot." Her other counterpart huffed. "Well, not the one I'm looking for, and Ar-, well berserker is bound to do something about that."

"Indeed." The master of the second nodded. "Next result please."


End file.
